The Lady In the Boat

The Lady in the Boat I glanced over my shoulder. At first, it looked like a dark spot hovering over the murky riverbed in fog as dense as a burial shroud, a curtain that quieted the landscape, even the crickets and loons, and left my footfall alone to accompany the tune that keep circling around in my head, something from Mozart I think. I had the feeling that something important was about to happen, a feeling I have often experienced, sometimes for reason but more often, not. Perhaps it was the eerie feel of it all and I was late. I placed my rucksack a little higher on my back and continued my journey along the river bank, no time to linger here thinking about impossible impressions, and focused my attention on the smell of smoke from someone’s fire as it mixed with the fog. Apple wood? Yellow birch? No time to dwell on silly thoughts. As the day closed, I had many miles of my journey ahead. I tried to shake off the feeling and continue. It’s narrow bow poked at me like an arrow as it pierced the dense cloud. Brilliant lacquered red and deepest ebony, its slick approach was silent and startling. Overpowered, I hesitated. Slowly, like the drops of mist that floated around us, it consumed my gaze, and though I wanted to look away, I was mesmerized by the site of the glistening paint, the sleekness of the vessel, as an eel gliding through the water without sound, ready to strike. And then, as I looked up, the figure appeared, sitting in the middle, eyes straight ahead, guiding the boat. I turned away, not wanting to be rude, not wanting to stare, and wishing only to continue my journey, light growing short after all, and this, no business of mine. But my gaze returned to the traveler. At first, I couldn’t tell, but soon realized it was a woman who, with delicate hands, held her oar high in the water and looked almost like a conductor ready to guide a symphony. The long braid of her hair curled up at the end and was fastened with a golden clip, like a musical clef at the beginning of a staff, and I laughed to myself that in one sheltered glance I would see music in her very being, since music had been playing in my head from the start of my journey, though I don’t know why, not being particularly inclined myself. She too carried a pack on her back, and I wondered what was inside. Notes to a song, perhaps, I thought, laughing again to myself, but maybe, more likely, notes to a lover, and then her eyes caught mine . I lowered my gaze and hurried along, muttering a quick “Good evening.” “A beautiful night for a journey,” she said, her voice lilting and engaging, one who could sing like an angel, I’m sure. “Yes,” I said. “although you cannot see far ahead.” The boat bobbed up and down gently, as the water splashed in rhythm against the rocks on the bank. I found that comforting, although the fog continued to give me distress and I needed to continue on. “No, not far ahead, but as far as you need,” she said, almost in song. She turned her head and smiled, and for the first time I saw the face of a young woman, one who looked familiar, although I could not place her. Perhaps a distant relative, I thought. Her eyes were clear, bright, intense in their gaze, and her hair glowed with streaks of light as it streamed down her slender back. He skin was as translucent as the mist, and I found myself wondering if I had ever seen a more beautiful woman. Her dress was a vivid red silk with purple and gold trim, and her feet were bare. “You would like to travel with me, yes?” How strange a question, I thought, but she seemed foreign, and perhaps this language was not her own. “I am confident with my journey here on land. I have places to go. But thank you for your offer,” I turned away, made my step a little faster along the path, but then tripped on the moss. “So silly, I am forgetting the new darkness it seems.” I silently cursed my own lack of agility, and blamed my age for taking away some of my sharpness. “The darkness is not to be forgotten, it is to be embraced,” she said, waving the oar over her head and placing it silently in the water again. “We move with so much effort, but the water continues with ease on its own deliberate course, do you see that?” “I’m afraid I don’t know what you are talking about,” I said, not wishing to startle this stranger, but needing to explain my own annoyance. “I tripped. That is all. But I am fine and must continue on my way.” I righted my sack, and my stance, took a deep breath and started out. But barely had I moved when she sang again, calling me back. “What do you carry?” The boat now stopped, her oar in the water planted firmly in the thick mud of the river bottom while her body swayed gently from side to side, embracing the oar as it moved, keeping time with the challenge of the water, like a pendulum. She is hypnotizing me, I thought; I watched her rhythmic movement, side to side, feeling both intrigued and also tired of this encounter. What did I carry? I carried much, but was not sure I wanted to get into the minor details of my life with one I did not know. I decided I needed to go on, and leave her with her questions. I forced myself to blink and look away. “I carry nothing of substance,” I said and excused myself, turning about, checking my footing on the moss-covered path. “That is good, and your journey?” she asked. I hesitated, looking from her to the path ahead. “I am not sure where I am going, but I’m searching, a wanderer I guess,” I said, wondering at the sudden ease of my tongue with this stranger. I was annoyed at myself for letting her engage me, and yet speaking to her was comfortable. “But time being what it is, I would like to continue on, it is already dark and I know I have far to go. And it grows cold.” I shivered, then looked into her eyes again unable to break our communion. “By the way, what is it you carry?” “All my earthly loves,” she said, without hesitation, “All my earthly claims.” “That sounds like quite a large burden,” I said, noticing the fog was clearing a bit and the crickets were starting to sing, everything was swirling around me again, and I had hope of moving about. “Oh no! The load is light,” she said. She looked at me, smiled with what I can only describe as enchantment, then cast her eyes downward and started to hum, so softly at first that I didn’t realize what I heard was her voice, more a vibration like a violin that is touched in the gentle way of a master producing a sound so low it seems to come from the ground or the air or the sky. She seemed in a trance, her sounds, guttural, primal, with the rhythm of the waves as it grew louder. Her voice released a captivating melody in time with the loons and with everything around us, even the silent mist, and the rolling fog, and the clouds and the river moving by us, and I realized it was a lullaby, my first and only lullaby and it pulled me and it tormented me and it coaxed me and it left me stunned. I could not move. “You will come with me now.” She crooned, both arms open. “No, I wish to continue.” I said, but even as the words spilled from my mouth, I dropped my rucksack and turned toward her, empty of hand. She nodded, continued to hum and I absorbed the sound of her delicate, floating notes and the sound of the crickets and the sound of a leaf falling hard against a tree stump and the sound of my lazy heartbeat vibrating in my chest. I watched my foot move in slow motion toward her, and then my unsure hand grab the side of the boat as I slipped in beside her, feeling light as the night air, lighter than I’d felt since a child running in the fields by my home, as light as a silver beam from the moon as it hands itself to the magic of night. The silk slap of the waves swirled around the boat and then grew quiet, and the smell of the earth and the leaves and the trees and the smoke and the moss filled my nostrils, and I inhaled the glorious perfume, let it overpower me, let it go; the sweet taste of the mist, and the salt of my tears, more flavorful than any wine placed on my lips, and it too was done. I glanced back at the riverbank as the world dissolved into the luscious velvet of the fog and mist, its scents and tastes and sounds and textures, all left to settle on the deep water, as she and the loons and the crickets sang me to delicious sleep. Dot Read